Seal the deal, BHO

K:

You should read Ross Douthat's review of Nixonland at the Atlantic.

Also, we should email Christopher Beam at Slate some scenarios for their "Obamapocalypse" contest. Sounds like Politico has their entry in already:

Not long after the polls close in the May 20 Kentucky and Oregon primaries, Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

And, until at least May 31 and perhaps longer, Hillary Clinton’s campaign plans to dispute it.

It’s a train wreck waiting to happen, with one candidate claiming to be the nominee while the other vigorously denies it, all predicated on an argument over what exactly constitutes the finish line of the primary race.

What's interesting here is that today an Obama campaign meltdown is fantasy, whereas yesterday the meltdown was fact. Or at least news...Whither Bittergate? Why was it significant that Barry called Matt Lauer "Tim"? (NBC thought it was about the incipient meltdown, but clearly Barry just lost his Kenneth: "If you leave the entourage, who's gonna help me tell white people apart?") Also, wasn't I just reading an appeal to BHO to quit? Yes, I was! Who's writing that type shit today?

Me, evidently. Nightmare scenarios for Obama? We're living through them: Barack spends a month dealing with bogus guilt-by-association smears. He fails to seal the deal in either Indiana or Pennsylvania (or Ohio or New Hampshire) despite having a 3-to-1 TV presence and a 4-to-1 bank account advantage. Clinton is allowed to hang on and bleed him to death all spring. Barry doesn't see it, is focused on the math, doubts that Clinton would suicide-bomb the party, realizes too late that he's running against Clinton and McCain. Spends May and June in regal seclusion, sits on his war chest. Both Barry's opponents lambaste him on all manner of strange bullshit; watch for the return of the turban-and-polo-shirt photo. Clinton shows up at the convention the underdog champion of the working-class, trying to do right by the great people of Michigan and Florida, blocks Obama's nomination, waits for fatigue to set in. Obama gets tired of fighting, accepts Clinton's promise of the VP. Obama's delegates from states Clinton won are released. Clinton gets the nomination and picks Evan Bayh for VP. Obama retires to the Senate in shame and disbelief. Clinton loses to McCain by 5%, her hate-factor killing off any hope of Democratic gains in the midwest and rust belt...

Barry needs to start a scorched-earth counterinsurgency now, or yesterday. Al Sayyid Hillary al-Amriki has already riled up the dispossessed majority, staked her claim to the heartland, and issued fatwas against the occupier. The Jaish-el-Clinton cannot be allowed to have safe harbor in Kentucky. Nor can it be permitted to import weapons from the McCainians...

'Eey, aowye doughin'!

****update****

Okay, for real, I'm not that tired of futures. I take it back. There are fears of failure here that the delegate math has done nothing to alleviate. Plus, I tend to take my Dad's advice on these matters, and he's calling a brokered convention. He had Allen beating Webb in 2006, though, so...

Still...fears! What happens when the core left decides phased withdrawal is too goddamned slow and boycotts the election? I mean, what happens when I and my class hop off the wagon? [I like to pretend there's a whole crop of us out there...] I don't like war on ghosts -- and an Obama presidency guarantees continued predator strikes on blind targets in Central Asia? Alternately, what happens when suburban whites abandon the era-of-good-feeling and vote their prejudices? Or, what happens when Republicans stop registering as Democrats in order to vote against Hillary Clinton? Sure we have Obama-McCain polls and Clinton-McCain polls, but no one is really, literally out of the race yet. Where is the long arm of the Bradley Effect? Fears!

Or: Hey, how we doing! Thass Chaka and Bob! Thass Philadelphia, bee! How exciting. But typically, the paper covered the scrum surrounding the speech, said "Obama spoke for more than half an hour," and left. Like he was talking about his new living-room set or some shit...

Also, here's Kaus. It is, as the man says, a Category II Kinsley Gaffe, i.e., a true statement.

The only trouble is no one likes being psychoanalyzed, viz.:

I think that when people ascend socioeconomically, they tend to spend less time with their families, and so issues of family become very important to them, and pretty soon everything Ivy-educated people do starts to become a search for a missing family life. People like Senator Obama are clinging to their own ambition in order to compensate for the loss of his father, for instance. It's the same impulse behind all of Paul Simon's work, Juno, so forth. Wes Anderson is the first satirist of what i call "yuppie remorse." [snip]

Now, that's not a quote from anyone, but it should have been. I think BHO's survival has less to do with his ability to thread the rhetorical needle than with the impotence of his opponents. The point of bittergate is that it's not over. It's the first sentence in the doomed-by-his-class narrative. I walked by Geno's the other night, which was blasting right-wing talk radio, and the guy used the word "elitist" seven times in a minute. This is the tip of the oiceberg.

And the point of the video, sadly, is visual: Barack and Chaka and their thug bodyguard, Bob. Not at all reassuring to Overland Park KS or Montgomery County PA or Fairfax VA. O for a radio age...

hasta
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ds

The recent hullabaloo over "Bittergate" seems to me indicative of exactly why we won't see good ol' Al Gore stepping into the ring. Gore's had a lot to say about the smallness of our politics. He actually sounds a lot like BarryHussein when he talks about it. But this just seems to be a perfect example of it. Seize on one inconsequential comment and blow it up to gigantic proportions.

How dare he look down on us?!

Is he an elitist?

Is he a Marxist?!

(Joe Lieberman is scum, by the way. Not that any of us needed reminding. But I'd be remiss if I didn't say it.)

And soon this will blow over. The media and various camps will try to hold onto it, just like they've done with the Wright "controversy." But it will fade in importance unless he very quickly follows it up with some equally maladroit phrasing. If Hillary wins in PA, "Bittergate" will enjoy a brief resurgence before being put to rest by an Obama victory in North Carolina. The Republicans will try to make some hay out of it in the fall, but hopefully the Obama team will have come up with a way to put the kibosh on it. He weathered the Wright storm, he'll make it through this one.

So, political future... Crystal Ballin'... what to look for? I'm gonna step out past the nomination battle. The abortion question gets raised. Repubs will say BarryHussein voted against making doctors save born-alive babies from botched abortions. We get the shots of protestors with their ugly signs. Maybe a special here or there on some one-armed kid that was the result of a botched abortion. Shots of a little blonde girl plunking away on a piano with her one arm. Et cetera. BarryHussein gives a speech on abortion in America. Balanced, reasoned. Tamps down controversy. I think this is actually the way he should approach these things. Organize rallies in response to "gaffes." Speak plainly and openly about the issues that trouble us so much as a culture. Make it simple and plain. And press the shit out of the media to cover them.

Eh. So, hubbub over abortion sometime in the fall. Of course. I'm still not afraid. I've my apprehensions and anxieties, yes, of course. But I'm not afraid. I don't think the other side realizes precisely what's going on this time around. There's the possibility of a grand realignment. Stark differences between the two candidates this time around. One for continuing the war as long as it takes. The other for ending it in a responsible manner. ("Responsible manner": look for that to be a key phrase in the Obama pitch. Talk of meetings and UN and regional responsibility.) One for expanding military spending to four percent of GDP, the other for rebuilding the American infrastructure. (I hope to GOD this is a central part of the Obama pitch. Reinvestment in infrastructure will create jobs and deliver a remarkable return on investment. If we put it right, this will sell hugely.) We'll have a clear contrast, and I think the American people will pick the side that's telling them they'll bring the troops home and give folks jobs.

More later.